


Whispers

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a spinner made a deal he didn't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> So I fell back into the show because Merlin was totty, and then Dark Swan, and then Clippy the Dark One showing up to give unwanted advice... I'm weak.

The torch had guttered out on the forest floor. Clouds obscured the moon. It was dark and cold, and Rumplestiltskin shuddered, groping across the ground for his staff. His fingers met the heavy material of the Dark One’s robes.

The Dark One.

His body.

Rumpelstiltskin took a shaking breath.

The grip of the dagger was hard and cold against his palm, and he couldn’t - didn’t want to - think about the darkness spreading out from it. He’d seen a glimpse, like shadows, as the torch sputtered and went dark. 

“You’re wasting precious time.” The man - the Dark One - whispered in his ear from behind and Rumpelstiltskin recoiled, whipping around like a startled hare. He heard the chuckle in the darkness and tried to back up, but collided with the- the body. 

“Y-you’re dead,” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice was shaking. “You-” The body was a solid weight behind him, a reminder of what he had done. “You died!”

He could feel a face close to his, could swear he could feel chilly breath on his skin. “That bag of meat, yes, but me? I’m you now, little man.”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin breathed. “No, no, no…”

Another chuckle, liquid, wicked. “You wanted me to tell you what to do.”

Rumpelstiltskin held the dagger tightly against his chest. He wanted to strike out again, stop the man - thing - whatever it was - from talking, but if he had killed it once, how could he kill it again? “Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.”

“And your boy? You’d like me to leave him be as well?” The voice seemed to be on all sides, soft, amused, laughing. “You’ve come this far, and now, you’re backing out? Looks like you really are the coward they all believe you to be, Rumpelstiltskin.”

Bae.

That was why he’d done it all.

Bae was out there, alone.

In the distance, through the trees, the faint glow of morning was starting to light the world.

“Look at that,” the whisper was right by his ear. “Morning, and you have a long way to go. Do you think they’ll wait for you to limp all the way there? Do you think you’ll get a chance to say goodbye, before they take him off and let the ogres tear him limb from limb? Do-”

“Stop it. Stop it!” Rumpelstiltskin found his staff, and struggled to his feet. The dagger felt heavier than it had, cold even despite his grip. “I-I have to get there. I-Bae…”

The Dark One’s face was close to his as the light spread and he could see again. Scales and glittering black eyes and sharp, twisted teeth. A monster. A monster that was playing with him with words. “Say the word and you can be there, Rumpelstiltskin. All you have to do is become me.”

Rumpelstiltskin shuddered. “I-I’m not a monster.”

“I never said you were,” the Dark One murmured, its face shadowed by the cowl. “Can’t hurt, though, can it? Take a little of what I offer? Get there in time to save your poor little lamb before they drag him off to slaughter. The boys scream just as much as the girls in the end, you know.”

Bae would be brave, Rumpelstiltskin knew. He would be brave, and he wouldn’t scream.

“He would. They all do.”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin whimpered. “No, not my boy.”

“Just ask, and we can save him.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s lips trembled. “Please,” he whispered. 

 

 

_____________________________________________________

 

 

The sound of bone snapping was echoing in his ears.

There was blood on his boots.

Around him, there was a battlefield. He’d seen its like before. He remembered it. The dagger was still cold and aching in his palm. Bring the children home. That was all he needed to do. Save Bae and bring the children home.

“And kill anyone who would hurt them.”

Rumpelstiltskin flinched as the cowled figure stepped alongside him. “No. I won’t kill anyone else.”

The Dark One snorted. “And next time people try to take your boy, you’ll what? Tell them off and send them home to mother for a spanking?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s throat burned with acid. He could still see the blood on the blade. One, two, three, four men laid out, turning the green grass red. In the back, in the throat, through the kidney, and up under the ribs. Neat. Precise. Experienced.

Not his hands.

Gods, he had only seen his home and Bae being dragged out, and some part of him moved. All at once, Bae was free and there were bodies all around, and for the first time, he’d felt strong and able and brave and _powerful_.

Now, though, the dagger was dripping ruby-red, and the echo of the crack of Hordor’s neck was making his legs shake beneath him.

“I don’t need to kill them,” he whispered. “I don’t.”

“What about these men?” The Dark One nodded ahead of them. Men in uniform. Men in armour. Striding about in a camp of children in rags with blunt swords. “They lined up the children to bleed and die and sat back in the camp like cowards.”

“I don’t need to kill them,” Rumpelstiltskin said a little louder, but it was a frail wee whisper compared to the Dark One’s mocking voice.

“And next time they come to get the children, they’ll come for your boy. He’ll be one of the older ones. The best age. Strong enough to pick up a sword. Big enough to be a target for the ogres.” Lips were close to his ear. “And he’s a pretty one, your boy. There are soldiers who’ll take advantage of a boy like-”

Rumpelstiltskin lashed out with the dagger. “Shut up!”

The laughter came from his other side. “You know I’m right. You’ve been here before. You know how soldiers can be with the weak and the pathetic and the helpless.”

He was breathing hard and he remembered. He remembered a girl in a cage. He remembered screams at night that weren’t from soldiers from the front. He remembered the looks on their faces when he was sent - hobbling - home. 

He remembered, and he raised his head, and there was blood on his hands that hadn’t been there before.

Bodies lay around him, chain mail ripped to pieces, throats opened, eyes glassy.

“What did you do?” he gasped aloud.

“Not me,” the Dark One laughed. “All your own fair hands.” He could swear he could feel lips against his ear. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

Rumpelstiltskin folded over and was sick on the grass.

 

 

______________________________________________________

 

“She saw the dagger.”

Rumpelstiltskin curled his fingers against the edge of the spinning wheel. “It doesn’t matter.”

The beggar-man was sitting on Bae’s stool, as if it had the right. “It doesn’t matter? Won’t it matter when she goes running off and tells everyone? You took the dagger from the Duke. Do you think there won’t be someone out there who’ll take it from you.”

The wheel spun, again, again, again. The straw flew through his fingers. The mark of poverty being spun into the wealth they never had before. Coarseness into smooth threads, fine as silk. Trickier than wool. There was never enough wool, not for all the days and the nights, but there was always straw.

“They’ll take it.”

Rumpelstiltskin fixed his eyes on the thread. “I’ll protect it.”

“Ha!” The Dark One hopped off the stool and spun around, spreading its hands. “A castle couldn’t keep a cripple out. Do you really think a little shack like this will stop anyone?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s fingers clenched on the rim of the wheel. “I’ll protect it.”

“With magic?” The Dark One crouched down in front of the spinning wheel. It had its human face on, the wide-eyed, innocent man. “You and I both know there’s always a price. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” It giggled. “Again.”

“I won’t kill an innocent girl,” Rumpelstiltskin snapped. 

“But an innocent trader is fine?”

Rumpelstiltskin clenched his teeth. “That was different. He hurt Bae.” The man had grovelled, begged, but he didn’t _mean_ it. Rumpelstiltskin knew what real fear was and whatever that man had felt, it wouldn’t stop him striking another clumsy boy in another town on another day. “He had to be an example.”

“Mm.” The Dark One rose, its clothing swirling into the robes it had worn when it died. “One life to protect your son from injury. What’s one more, when it’ll protect both of you from worse? You don’t think you’re the most powerful creature in all the lands, do you?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked up at it. “What?”

“There are powers greater than you,” the Dark One said cheerfully. “Greater than us. I could help protect you from them, but no, no, don’t sully your bloody hands with more blood. Gods forbid you actually care enough about your son to want to keep him safe.”

Rumpelstiltskin rose from the wheel. “You said you were more powerful than anything.”

The Dark One shrugged with a smile. “How powerful could I be? You killed me.”

“Oh Gods…”

The Dark One glided closer. “You see? If someone like you can kill something like us, you need to keep it safe from anyone. Even just a maid.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. “I need to keep Bae safe…” There was a knife on the table. Long. Sharp. Good for cutting fresh meat from the bone. His fingers curled around the handle. “This’ll protect him.”

“Yes,” the Dark One purred. “It will.”

 

 

____________________________________________

 

Bae was striding ahead of him.

The forest was dark, as it had been the night he had taken the Dark One’s knife and made himself a monster. Branches and leaves crackled underfoot, and the lights of the lamps in the village were fading behind them.

“He spoke to her.”

Rumpelstiltskin clenched his hands and ignored the shadow by his side.

“You’ve heard of Rheul Ghorum, little man. I know you have.”

Rumpelstiltskin tried to ignore it, but it was right. A long time ago, when he was learning the art of the wheel, the women who weren’t his mother told him stories, and sat him by the window to look up at the brightest of all the stars: Rheul Ghorum, the queen of the night sky.

She watched over everyone, they said. She saw all. She blessed the good, and cast down the wicked. She helped those who were too weak to help themselves and punished those who hurt them.

Rumpelstiltskin had never seen her intervene.

“She’s not what the stories say,” the Dark One murmured. “She picks and chooses those she helps, and when she does, she always has her reasons.” It snorted. “She doesn’t do anything out of kindness. Humans are pieces in a game to her. Your son is a piece.”

“You said fairy magic doesn’t agree with us.”

The Dark One chuckled. “Oh, yes. It doesn’t. That bitch has been trying to destroy me and mine for centuries.” It leaned closer as they walked. “What do you think this is all about? She’s using your affection for your son. She’s turned him into bait.”

“Maybe,” Rumpelstiltskin snapped, “she wants to help him.” She helped the good, he remembered, and there was no one better than his boy. Who else could be more deserving of the kindness of Rheul Ghorum?

“Like I helped you?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s nails were sinking into his palms. “You’re the Dark One.”

“And she rules the night and watches children die in the ogre wars and does nothing to stop it. What’s your point?”

Rumpelstiltskin turned to look at him. “The stories say she’s good.”

“You weren’t listening to them.” The Dark One’s face was close to his. “The stories say she blesses the good and curses the bad. That doesn’t mean she’s good. That means she punishes people who were desperate enough to…” It made a vague gesture. “I don’t know… let’s say stab a monster to get enough power to save their son.”

Rumpelstiltskin felt his skin crawl. “She wouldn’t use Bae to get to me.”

“Wouldn’t she? She hates us.”

“You.”

“ _Us_. You’re one of us now. You’ll see I’m right. She’s going to tear you to pieces. She’s waited for centuries for someone so gullible to fall for her tricks.”

Ahead of him, Rumpelstiltskin could see Bae picking his way through the trees, a bright spot in a world that was getting darker and more terrifying by the moment. “Not for long,” he whispered through his teeth. “Me and my boy are going to a world where you won’t bother us anymore.”

The Dark One laughed. “We’ll see, little man.”

 

____________________________________________

 

“I’m impressed. Stealing one power was a good start, but stealing another? I didn’t see that coming.” The Dark One laughed to himself. “See that coming. Get it?”

Rumpelstiltskin ignored him. 

He used the magic. It was there. He had no reason not to now. He had tried every trick he knew. He had tried every trick the Dark One knew too. He had tried transporting himself after Bae. He had tried blood spells. He had tried everything.

Desperation made a man do stupid things.

So did a girl with eyes on her palms and a knowing smile. 

He’d left her dead in the clearing and retreated, stumbling and staggering, to his citadel, that little stone house that wasn’t a home until his son was back where he belonged.

The future and all the possibilities were beating against the inside of his head, blinding and deafening. It was a kaleidoscope of chaos, like trying to sift through sand on a wind-blown beach.

He clasped his hands over his ears, pressed his eyes shut, and tried to focus, tried to pick out something, anything, in the maelstrom that might help. It was - it felt - impossible to catch a single piece that made sense. There was too much power, and he couldn’t control it, not alone.

Not alone.

He wasn’t alone. 

The seer had been cursed with Dark Magic. What was the Dark One if not the incarnation of Dark Magic? If anyone had the power and the knowledge to make sense of what he was seeing…

He opened his eyes and wasn’t surprised to find the Dark One crouched in front of him, grinning in the half-light. He lowered his hands from his ears and stared at the creature he had been fighting against for so long. 

“Not so easy, is it?”

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed hard. He needed to find Bae. He needed to make things right. He knew he would do whatever it took to do that. No matter how desperate. No matter how low he had to sink. Whatever he had to do.

“You like deals,” he said quietly.

“Mm.” The Dark One nodded. “They… make things simpler. People don’t read the small print.”

“Can you control the sight?”

The Dark One scratched its cheek with the long nail of its smallest finger. “I’m sure I can help.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Rumpelstiltskin was breathing hard. His head was aching, throbbing with the thousands of possibilities. “I want you to tell me if you can control the sight and let me see what I need to see to find my way to my son.”

The Dark One studied him, dark eyes gleaming. “I don’t see why not.”

Rumpelstiltskin subsided back against the wall, closing his eyes. “Then I’ll make a deal with you.”

The Dark One raised his brows. “Yes?”

“Help me create the curse. The Dark Curse the seer spoke of. Help me to see what needs to be done to find Bae.”

“And what do I get?”

Rumpelstiltskin opened his eyes. “Me.”

“I already have you, little man.”

“Not willingly,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered. “You can guide my hand, as long as you swear you won’t stop me from finding Bae.”

The Dark One looked amused. “All this for that boy. You never learn, do you, Rumpelstiltskin?”

As the Dark One faded from sight, Rumpelstiltskin felt his mind becoming clearer, sharper. The visions hurt less. The world was vivid and brilliant and brighter. He rose, and magic coiled around him, the walls fading about him.

“This,” the Dark One whispered in his mind, “is how to be the Dark One.”

 

____________________________________________ 

 

 

Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to years. Years to decades. Decades to a century.

Time made things clearer.

It made it easier too, to forget the trails of bodies, the blood, the broken bones, the screams and pleas for mercy. The Dark One had no reason to hold back, and it had a reputation to uphold, even as it did what Rumpelstiltskin wanted.

Deals were the only thing to hold it in check, but even then, Rumpelstiltskin was learning the art of playing with words, putting someone in a position where they didn’t listen carefully or ask specifically enough. 

Then the sands shifted and there she was, the girl who was to give him exactly what he needed.

She was a ferocious wee thing. Rumpelstiltskin could recognise the roughness of her hands and the colour in her face. Common-born, playing at being a queen for a day, proud and fierce and in another lifetime, he knew he would have been dazzled.

She was the key.

He expected desperation and begging and demands for his aid. After all, her life was at stake, and what sensible person wouldn’t make hapless promises to save their own skin.

And then, she dazzled him.

Not just him, either.

He perched on the roof in the darkness afterwards, frowning into the night.

“That’s what a woman should be like,” the Dark One said.

It had been a long time since he’d seen that face, but it was human now, and that struck Rumpelstiltskin as perverse. It only appeared human when it was making a point of how inhuman he was now. 

“She wants more than she has,” Rumpelstiltskin said. 

It reminded him of another woman in another time and another place. Once, Milah had been satisfied with what they had: a home, a trade, even plans for a family. It had changed. She had changed and become more like that, hungry for everything the world had to offer, everything she felt they deserved. She had decided what he had to offer then wasn’t enough.

Even when he had power and strength, she turned from him.

He remembered that too, the dust on his hand as she folded to the deck of a pirate’s ship.

This girl, though, wanted what he had to offer and took it without hesitation. She even made offers of her own and she smiled, lips as red as blood.

Gods, it had been a long time since a woman looked at him like that. She was ruthless and terrifying and spectacular. What a woman like that could be capable of. She could be awesome or terrible, and he couldn’t tell which way she her fate might fall. 

“Push her,” the Dark One urged. There was a hunger in its voice he recognised as his own. Gods above, he wanted her, and the Dark One was fanning the flames. She was in his power, but she was standing her ground. How could he resist someone with spirit like that? “Let’s see how far this little spinner’s daughter is willing to go.”

“The future-”

“We’ll work with it,” the Dark One breathed. “Take her. Push her. Test her. If she’s the one, we can’t have her breaking.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, unfolding from the roof. “And if she breaks?”

The Dark One giggled. “Well, then we know she’s not the right one for us.”

 

___________________________________________

 

The little miller girl was a Princess.

The little miller girl’s daughter would be a Queen.

Rumpelstiltskin wanted to hate Cora. She had drawn him out, made him weak, made him twist up and break one of his own deals only to betray him just as Milah had. She had left him behind for everything she wanted.

He stood by the cradle in the nursery, looking at the child that should have been his.

“Precious, isn’t she?”

Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyes, looking across at the Dark One. “You planned this?”

The Dark One spread his hands. “People make their own choices.”

“You know she would choose this,” Rumpelstiltskin snarled. “This… life with wealth and power and royalty.”

“Sh,” the Dark One said, smiling. “You’ll wake the curse-caster.”

Rumpelstiltskin stared at him, then down at the child. Regina. “You knew…”

“We made a deal, you and I,” the Dark One drifted towards the window, looking down onto the palace grounds. “My hands to get you to your son.” It turned back with its demon grin. “You never said you had to be happy.”

Rumpelstiltskin stared at it. “You saw this. You told me to push her. To corrupt her. To take her and see how far she would go.”

The Dark One laughed. “And how far she came.” It ran a hand down its chest and licked its lips like a reptile. “I didn’t foresee the skirt-lifting, but I can’t deny it was pleasant while it lasted.” It turned, eyes gleaming. “You know she’d let you do it again. She’d have no qualms about riding you until you wept again, then ripping your bastards from her body.”

Rumpelstiltskin stepped back, whipping the magic around him to withdraw from the keep.

The forest was quiet.

“You know that doesn’t work. Where you go, I go.”

Rumpelstiltskin whirled around. “Shut up.”

“Rumpel, Rumpel, Rumpel… how long have we been together now? Do you really think I’m going to stop because you say so?” The Dark One was in front of him again, smiling. “She was heartless long ago, that pretty maid of yours. You don’t think an innocent would spread her legs like that, do you? She knew what she wanted and she took it, and you? Well, you were what you always have been: nothing.”

“I’m not nothing,” Rumpelstiltskin lashed out with magic.

The demon laughed. “I’m sure that’s a comfort to whisper in the dark of the night, but I know your mind, little man. You can’t hide the truth from me. You know you’re getting just what you deserve. Did you really think someone like that could love you? Someone with that much strength and will?”

Rumpelstiltskin flinched. “Will this all get me to Bae?” 

“We made a deal, didn’t we?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked at it, clenching his teeth. “Then it doesn’t matter what happens to me, to anyone else, as long as I get to him.”

The Dark One’s eyes glinted as he faded into the shadows. 

 

 

_______________________________________________

 

Watching over Cora’s child was an interesting enough pass-time. 

The girl was meek as milk compared to dear old mother. He watched her from cradle to infancy, infancy to youth. She needed to be ready for him, but he hardly had to do a thing. Cora was doing more than enough to take the dull blade and sharpen it. 

Under a veneer of manners and etiquette befitting a would-be Queen, there was a layer of anger and bitterness. Hatred would filter into that soon enough. Any child raised with a parent who did such things to their own child, closing them up, restricting them, limiting them, deserved everything-

“Get out of my head,” Rumpelstiltskin snarled, turning away from the scrying glass.

“Your thoughts, dearie,” the Dark One trilled in a mocking echo of Rumpelstiltskin’s own dramatic manner. 

He’d assumed the habit long ago, acting for his audience. He knew he was slight. He knew he wasn’t the kind to impel fear. So he had dressed up in scales and hides and silks. He knew he could never be one of the men who had cowed him so often in his human lifetime, so he went as far as he could in the opposite direction.

Men seemed to find it more repellent than women.

Of course they did. That was the fun of it, watching them see an unmanly expressive man who was smaller and looked frailer, but who could still easily snap their necks with a flick of a wrist. 

The only trouble with such a persona was that the Dark One had adopted it too, using his own mask against him, reminding him of just how fragile it was. 

He cleared the scrying glass with a sweep of his hand.

“How long until we approach her?”

The images crowded in his mind, and he knew.

“She’ll call to me?”

The Dark One spun across the floor. The room was far grander than anywhere Rumpelstiltskin had resided before. He’d… acquired the castle many years earlier, far from all but the most desperate of people, and yet people still came, seeking the aid of the one known as Rumpelstiltskin.

“Don’t they always?” The Dark One grinned. “Like calls to like. Your precious little lamb sought magic. Now, your bastard does the same.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s nails cut into his palms. “She’s not my child.”

“Mm? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” He bared his teeth at the Dark One. “Your deal, dearie. If she tried to break it, I know you wouldn’t have let that pass.”

The Dark One waved a hand dismissively. “An easy blow anyway.” It traced a fingertip along a shelf. “She’ll call to you soon. There’s blood in the air. The horses are running. Soon enough, she’ll be desperate enough.” It widened its eyes. “Maybe she’s more like you than you thought.”

Rumpelstiltskin thought of the child he’d watched growing year by year. She was older now than Bae had been when he was lost. He knew this child - this young woman - almost better than he knew his own son, and that was unforgivable. 

“What she’s like doesn’t matter. Only Bae matters.”

The Dark One only laughed and faded out of sight.

 

________________________________________________

 

There was another girl.

Dark-haired, spirited, essential to their plans according to the Dark One.

Rumpelstiltskin could recall too well how badly he had been burned before, when the Dark One set his eyes on the miller’s daughter. He was reminded with every day of pushing and prodding and guiding the little Queen. 

Cora’s daughter had embraced the darkness quickly. He hardly needed to push her at all. She was desperate for approval and validation. Once, he might have felt the same way, then he learned he might die before ever seeing his son, and approval and propriety had been put aside. 

A little maid was nothing.

A mere piece of decoration. Like furniture. Or a vase of flowers.

Furniture, though, seldom moved or berated him or grabbed at his wrist to keep him from exacting a punishment on a thief. Furniture didn’t touch him as if he was a man and not the monster of legend.

Furniture wasn’t warm and soft when it landed in his arms.

The Dark One seemed amused by his growing discomfort.

Rumpelstiltskin had few morals left. Most of them had been gradually worn away by the years, but taking sexual advantage of a woman was not something he was willing to do. The Dark One whispered at night that it wouldn’t be so bad. Just a little touch, a little taste of it. It had been a long-time between women, after all, and he was only human. At least the part of him that counted…

Rumpelstiltskin bit down on his tongue and ignored it.

This woman, Belle, wasn’t Cora. They were as different as it was possible to be: one born to nobility, the other common as dirt; one gentle and firm, the other proud and fierce; one choosing to be a servant to save her family, the other choosing royalty to spite hers.

And yet…

And yet, like Cora before her, and Milah before that, Belle was brave and strong-willed. It was something he always liked in a woman. 

Unfortunately, it made her one of the most frustratingly stubborn young women he had ever had the misfortune of employing. His foibles were brushed away with a raise of an eyebrow or a wry smile. His mocking words earned snorts of mirth. 

She wasn’t afraid of him.

Still, the Dark One whispered in the darkness, but gradually, it grew easier and easier to ignore. He just had to glance towards her, see her dusting, carrying to tea tray, reading in the library, and suddenly, the Dark One seemed to fade away into nothing.

The plan was still in motion, the first threads of True Love drawing together, but more often than not, he spent his spare moments in the castle, pretending to find fault in everything his little maid was doing, and getting sceptical looks in response.

He knew it was absurd, but he dressed to catch the eye. He could never tell if she was smiling because she saw the effort he was making or because she was amused that he thought fine silks could change what lay beneath.

When someone hunted her, to reclaim her like a token, the Dark One scarcely needed to even guide his hand, and his lady had a fine rose. 

She told him then, of the places she had dreamed of going, the world she wanted to explore and see long before he had ever crossed her path. The wonder of it all lit her face and she looked radiant, and he knew in that moment that he couldn’t keep her away from that world.

It didn’t matter what part she had to play, if any. She deserved her happiness.

He let her go.

For once, the Dark One didn’t taunt him.

“Why would you do that?”

Rumpelstiltskin gazed down from the tower window, watching the road that led to the castle, as the night turned dark. He’d offered her the chance to return, but no one had before. No one had chosen him, not over their dreams and their desires. 

“Because,” he replied, even though he knew it was unnecessary, “I love her.”

 

__________________________________________

 

 

She was the same as the rest, exactly the same.

She had betrayed him.

She had tried to steal his magic away from him.

“I told you there was a greater magic,” the Dark One roared in rage. “I told you!”

Rumpelstiltskin upended the table, sending the rose and its vase crashing to the floor. He grabbed up his staff, that gods-damned reminder of the useless shell of a man that he was, and smashed and smashed at all the trinkets she had cleaned and polished and organised for him. 

His chest was heaving and the glass was sinking into his palms, but there was no pain. There was never pain anymore, not like that, not when he wanted and needed it to keep him angry, to keep him furious and not to fall apart.

Bae.

He’d told her about Bae and then, she’d-

-she’d…

He touched his fingertips to his lips, then howled again, lashing his arm along the ruin of glass and china. It clattered and tinkled around his feet on the polished floor.

Gods above, why had he trusted her? Why had he cared?

True love’s kiss, she said, smiling at him, all guileless and wide eyes.

She’d tried to strip his power away from him, and lied.

True love’s kiss wasn’t real. Not for him. Who could ever love something like him?

“Kill her.”

His nails carved furrows into the shelves.

“Rip out her throat.”

His breath was rattling between his teeth. “No. Not her.”

“She betrayed you! She betrayed us! She was trying to destroy us!” The Dark One was storming behind him. “We knew Regina was growing ambitious, but the little bitch has advanced a long way to come up with something like this.”

Rumpelstiltskin shuddered, trying not to think of Belle’s lips on his. He was shaking down to his bones, his hands braced against the shelves. He felt like he might stumble, fall. An after-effect of the spell. An after-effect of almost stripping away all that he had done and achieved and ripping away his only way to get to Bae. 

“What was it? What could do that?” The Dark One was silent for so long that Rumpelstiltskin turned to look at it. “She said it was true love’s kiss…”

“The most powerful magic,” the Dark one breathed. “Regina did this. She made this girl into her weapon. She needs to die. If you ever want to see that boy of yours again, you need to be rid of this one. She could stop this. She could stop you.”

She could.

It was right.

But he couldn’t kill her, no matter what the Dark One said. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Not her. Never her.

Maybe she thought it was true love’s kiss, but that didn’t matter. That couldn’t be true, not for him. It couldn’t, even if she thought she loved him, it was impossible. Whatever Regina had done to trick her would wear off sooner or later. He couldn’t believe something like that, or take a chance on it, not when she would see the truth and leave like everyone else. He couldn’t just leave Bae out there somewhere, alone, believing himself forgotten.

Himself or his child…

He knew, he always knew, he would choose his child.

He let her go again, this time without kindness. She was cast out, rejected, and her eyes were bright with shock and tears. She should have walked away, left without looking back like the others, but gods, she didn’t. She came back into her cell, her cage, her prison, and called him the name he had never wanted to hear on her lips.

In the end, he thought as she walked away, she saw him for what he really was after all.

 

 

______________________________________

 

The curse was all he could care about. 

It was all he would care about.

The Dark One could try and distract him if it wanted, but all he cared about was Bae now. He couldn’t let himself think or care about anyone else. Not with the stories of scourging and flaying and blood on the rocks at the bottom of a tower.

The visions were swirling, the fate thick and settling around him.

He’d caged himself, in readiness. 

Yes, they believed him to be imprisoned, but it was a place where he could bide his time, wait, give the playing pieces the knowledge the needed, and when the time came, the curse would whisk them all away.

He paced the floor of the cells. He climbed the walls. Without his wheel to hand, without anything to occupy his mind, he saw a green portal and Bae’s fingers slipping through his. He saw a tower, a falling figure, heard the scream as she fell. He saw Bae again, a man grown, his face unfamiliar, not quite clear. Dark. He was dark like Milah, but that was all he could make out.

Gods, he couldn’t even remember his son’s face. How was he meant to find him? And in a world without magic?

The terror closed around him, but there was hope ahead, light, his son. His son, who was the reason for everything, for the blood he’d shed, for the sacrifices he’d made, for everything he had done.

So he paced, and climbed, and walked and laughed, exultant, relieved, delighted, as each little visitor came, and each was given the titbit that they needed and he gathered his cards to his chest, his advantages and favours and names that he needed.

The other world would be strange and dangerous, but he would have some tools there, even if no one else knew about them.

“Satisfied?”

He didn’t turn to face the Dark One, as he paced along in front of the cage. The air was thick with magic, and it was coming. At long last, it was coming and he would see Bae again. Not long now, not after so many centuries. 

“You seem happy.”

“I’m going to see my boy. You can’t keep me from him this time.”

The Dark One laughed. Always laughing, that low, dark chuckle. “I keep my deals, Rumpelstiltskin. I told you I would find us the way to your son.”

Rumpelstiltskin turned to look at him. It felt like the chain of the Dark One’s power around his throat was looser now, but that could always be an illusion. “I’m going to a land without magic.”

The Dark One grinned at him. “I know.”

“You won’t be a part of me there.”

The grin only widened. “That’s where you’re wrong, _dearie_.” It glided towards him and leaned in close. “I am you, Rumpel. Ever since you picked up that blade, I have been. You think jumping worlds is going to change that? You can’t change what you are, what you always have been: a coward and a monster.”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. “I’ll be free of you,” he whispered. “I will. I’ll find Bae and we’ll be happy.”

As the curse struck, the Dark One threw back his head and laughed.


End file.
